Co-Productive Project Development in Urban and Regional Planning

Co-production is gaining prominence, both as an analytical term and as a conceptual framework applied to urban and regional planning, during the last years (Lee et al. 2024:237). There is no single definition, there are various (Valencia et al. 2020; Bandola-Gill et al. 2023). Often the term is used unspecified. Here, co-production means the collaborative process where citizens, stakeholders and professionals work together to design, develop, and implement projects or policies to “make a city” or transform regions. Therefore, co-production can be a powerful, people-centered approach to urban and regional planning. Currently, urban planners, who face complex challenges in terms of population and economic development as well as urban renewal in deprived neighbourhoods, are increasingly discussing planning cultures, actor- specific modes of interaction and communication-based goal achievement. New forms of cooperation can be tested and learning effects generated by examining how mutual expectations, participation and trust-building are handled. Representatives of private-sector, intermediary or civil society interests are no longer merely the recipients of government procedures, programmes and projects. Rather, as co-producers, they actively shape urban spaces and become relevant cooperation partners for urban planning and economic development. They therefore assume control functions and responsibility for space-forming processes themselves. The findings of this paper are based on research conducted with qualitative analysis of literature review and of semi-structured interviews with municipal stakeholders and business owners. As a result, a research model for the analysis of co-productive value chains was developed. On behalf of analysis of different examples of value-creation-chains of cultural service and manufacturing firms it is shown that co-production needs equal, networked forms of communication and cooperation as well as specific location conditions. As a result, co-production should not be seen as a planning tool or technique, but as a paradigm shift for future urban development. It enables to integrate different needs and expectations as well as innovations in all phases of spatial project development at eye level by addressing multi-actor involvement differently from established forms of collaborative planning.